Popular Art Collections at Tasveer Ghar

Since examples of popular art or ephemera have been preserved mostly in private collections rather than formal museums, libraries or archives, Tasveer Ghar strives to make some of these collections available digitally on its website. So far, we have hosted the following collections available online, and more are in the pipeline:

• Priya Paul Collection (see below)
• Erwin Neumayer and Christine Schelberger Collection
• Gautam Hemmady Collection of Matchbox Labels

Priya Paul Collection of Popular Art

Tasveer Ghar is very pleased to announce the release of the Priya Paul collection of popular art to the public on the digital platform of Heidicon, the image and multimedia database of Heidelberg University, Germany. Tasveer Ghar digitized over 4000 images from the Priya Paul Collection (about which you can find more details here) and hosted these along with their metadata on Heidicon. Initially the collection was made available to select scholars who benefited from it, many of them writing visual essays based on these and other images. Some of these essays have also been published in our book Visual Homes, Image Worlds (Yoda Press, 2015).

The Priya Paul collection has now been released for public (with a medium image-size) on the following link.

https://heidicon.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/search?p=225,271,272

Since the database is on a German language website, you may access it in English by clicking on a tiny British flag icon on the top right corner of the page.

Please feel free to browse through our 4200+ images and their metadata. When you click on a thumbnail, you’ll be able to see the selection and its details in the left column. You can download or see its large size too.

You are free to view or share the Priya Paul images online, but kindly quote the source (Priya Paul Collection/Tasveer Ghar/Heidicon). If you wish to see an image in original/high resolution or use it in an academic publication, you will need to take permission from Priya Paul, and provide the necessary credit. For non-academic and commercial use (such as in videos, book covers etc.) we charge a licensing fee. For permissions, please write to yousuf@tasveergharindia.net.

Our metadata/descriptions about these images are still developing. We would be happy if you wish to contribute any further details or explanation about a specific image that you find here. We would be happy to include your information along with your name as long as it is authentic and backed by a source.

You may browse the images spread over several pages by clicking back and forth arrows on the top, or search for specific images by typing keywords in the search box. In the drop-down menu on the right of search window, please always select EXC Priya Paul. Kindly note that other image collections of the university are also available on this database, and permission of the respective collectors is required to access and use these. Kindly do not make any changes in the database.

You may also see some details about the collection at Heidelberg University, or download the PDF of a leaflet about the collection.